It appears that more and more designers, architects and urban planners are doing their best to bring light and activity to the dark spaces under bridges and overpasses and chase trolls away.

In Kosice, Slovakia, forgotten space underneath one overpass was transformed by esterni, a Milan-based cultural organization that designs public spaces and services, and Atrium Studio, an architectural and planning firm in Kosice. Wooden bench/seats built and installed on an angled bank turned it into a seating area. Directly across, a wooden bar/projection area softened and transformed intimidating concrete pylons.

Pod Mostom – Under the Bridge – was completed with 30 kgs of pizza and 50 kgs of beer plus an unspecified amount of champagne.

How do I know that? From the nice video on the Atrium website that recorded the transformation of the space.

I only know about Pod Mostom because of Marta Savoldelli. She’s part of esterni and runs the blog Public Design Festival on Tumbler.

She saw my blog post on the plans by Vancouver House architect Bjarke Ingels to animate the public area underneath the Granville Street Bridge with light boxes. Ever since they started to be widely used by Jeff Wall, light boxes have been used by photo-based artists to backlight their works.

Another project she provided a link to is in the United Kingdom. It’s got a great name: Folly for a Flyover.

(The Brits call an underpass a flyover.)

FFF was a temporary project for nine weeks that transformed an area underneath the A12 Motorway in London into a public space in 2011 in London.

The FF attracted 40,000 people over a summer to a program of films, performances and plays. The temporary brick structure looked like a building trapped between east and west overpasses with its roof rising up between them.

A third project was in Lima, Peru by Basurama. It involved reclaiming the space under an abandoned railroad track. With the help of local community members and artists, it was transformed into a playground made from recycled material such as tires and car parts.

A couple of other underpass reclamation projects include the Stanica Culture Centre in Zilinea, Slovakia. In Toronto, the Underpass Park is being built under a freeway overpass close to downtown and the Don River.